I love boys! I feel so passionately that boys in our society are being failed and expected to behave like girls, but as a mother of 3 boys I want to bring mine up to be real men - strong, passionate risk takers. This blog is about our family's journey in raising our boys....

Tuesday, 5 January 2010

Grrrrrrrr and Aaaaaaggggghhh

The title sums up exactly how I am feeling today. Having had my boys off school for 2 and a half weeks I sent them back in this morning with glee. The fighting, arguing and tale telling had become unbearable and they needed to be somewhere other than near me!

As we walked to school, however, the sky went ominously purple and then small balls of white fluff started falling from the sky. "It's snowing!" shouted the boys in excitement whilst I tried desperately to pretend it wasn't happening. By the time Jonah and I reached the warmth of home again it was snowing hard, and settling and an hour later the streets had transformed from grey old Charford to the beauty of a winter wonderland. The beauty was not long lasting though, because at 11am I had the text to say the school was closing. Wrapping ourselves up yet again, we traipsed back down to school to pick up 2 very excitable boys. Pushing a pushchair in the snow is no easy task, but pushing one with a screaming, cold, hungry and tired toddler in it is even worse. By the time we reached home (again) I was sweating and crotchety to say the least.

Throwing the boys in the garden, I attempted to be happy and enjoy the snow with them but that was not to be as Jonah continued to scream about having cold hands. I wonder when he will actually realise that if he wears his gloves instead of taking them off and throwing them on the floor, his hands might actually stay slightly warmer. We made a snowman and I gave them some water with food colouring in, to paint the snow, and that was my limit. I needed warmth, I needed sanity and I needed my 2 year old to have his lunch and go for a nap!

Having put him in bed, I have given the other 2 their lunches and done an hour of "snow experiments" with them before thankfully letting them watch the tv guilt free. Why couldn't it have snowed yesterday when Jared was off work? We could have all gone sledging and it would have been "Happy Families". The photo's would have made us look like we were one of those families who always have fun and never argue (do those families exist?)! As it is, they are stuck with a grumpy mum who really was looking forward to some child-free time today.